Hunting - where to start?

You got access to large quantities of land?

I say start with squirrel hunting... It gets exciting and they aren't very hard to kill..

Lol

Unfortunately, no. For the most part, we would have to hunt WMA's. his grandfather has property out in Clinton somewhere- not much, but from what I understand he does have some wild hogs out there.

No expert but here is my 2 cents from someone who grew up around hunting but never fell in love with it.

First obviously get all the safety and license out of the way. Then start saving for guided hunts. Use their expertise, their land, their equipment. It blows my mind at the number of hunters who invest thousands upon thousands of dollars as well as 100's of hours of land management, recon, etc just for a couple of trips a year. Do these people even have a wife or children?!

My favorite hunting as a teen were squirrel, quail, and dove. The problem with squirrel was, no-one ate squirrel (so why hunt it?). Quail was probably the most real hunting I did but we didnt have a dog. It was basically hiking with shotguns. Dove hunting was awesome and a community event where we would just go out and sit in a field on a 5 gallon bucket. I remember many days just hanging out in a field, talking, listening to the football games, and blasting away. It wasn't really hunting but an awesome time for a youngster.

Decide what type of hunting he/you would be interested in. Do you want to sit motionless and silent in a tree for hours, or do you want to BS with a bunch of guys in a duck blind? Or, as is my case, both. From there, start reading everything you can about the type of hunting you'd like to try and look for people with experience and patience who would be willing to teach you.

Or, seek out the OB poster known as Fat Neck and see if he can take you on as an apprentice.

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Down by Burn's Point; may be good for ducks?

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Just head to Catahoula Lake. Fat Neck lets casual hunters set up near his blind, since it's all on public water anyway. Make sure to get there and start to set up around 30 minutes after first light. You'll do best if you get about 75 yards downwind of his decoy spread, so you can watch how he does it all. Great guy.

Squirrels are the cheapest to hunt, start there on a WMA...

I appreciate all the advice; I'm going to get us both signed up for the safety ed class and then reach out to a couple friends that duck hunt- at least to get a feel for it and let my son see if he's still interested.

What type gun should I be looking at for a scrawny 12 year old? 12 gauge shotgun or would that be too much?

You don't want your first hunting experience to be a south louisiana marsh duck hunt............that is unless you are taking the gf who you want to absolutely hate hunting and never want to go back and think all you do when you're hunting is be miserable. Then, by all means, make that your first hunt.